Can You Complete the Pokedex Only Using Surprise Trade?

It honestly feels like people now are being a lot more generous in surprise trades. It might be because it’s becoming easier to get shinies, which is in no way a bad thing, but I’ve noticed more non hacked shiny Pokémon, and just really good late game Pokémon being traded in this generation than in previous generations. It’s really nice to see people helping strangers out with filling out the Pokédex, even if it’s just because they have extras. I remember when people would just release the extra Pokémon and it always made younger me feel a little sad.

Have to say, as an older viewer, I am absolutely here for Mikey’s slow descent into a Markiplier-style madness. 10/10, keep it up dude.

I like how people are being nice in surprise trades now. Especially after the greninja raid, legit non-hacked 6 IV hidden ability Froakies are flying all over the place.

I enjoyed this video. I saw the title and was like "Well Obviously the answer is yes." And then Mikey said that he didn't want to waste hours upon hours of his life randomly trading and I just laughed because yeah, that is EXACTLY how I wasted a summer when I got OmegaRuby to complete the dex. I can imagine completing the paldean dex is going to be time consuming this way.

This has propably been said before, but Traumato is actually just german for Drowzee. "Traum" is german for "dream", so thats probably why it is namend that way.

When referring to the "johtoian" Wooper or any Pokemon form that isn't the regional variant, we should be saying the "National Form"
Cause if you catch one in SInnoh, its not exactly Johtonian - it has nothing to do with Johto, but it is in that form nationally except for specific regions, which have the other form

Why do I feel like that haunter was from a person who thought they would get it back as a gengar but didn’t realise they were on surprise trade not a link trade.

Man I really wish Shiny Gengar and the rest of its evo line looked like it's mega. The white looks great on it

Dimension 20 is a definite win, Mikey seems like he’d definitely be a Brennan fan

For levelling up, use a high pevel mon (if someone sends a paradox, it'll be around 60) for 3 and 4 star raids for candies.

Did you ever get a galarian Meowth from OT Phoenix? I got a Lechonk with OT Mikey a few days ago, but it's a very common name so I didn't consider the possibility until this video came up.

Great video! This brought back a lot of memories. I did something similar to this back in Pokemon X, where I traded away my breeding leftovers to try and get a living dex of unique trainer numbers (minus legendaries of course). I forget how far I got, maybe a little over halfway, before I got bored with it (and frustrated from getting a bajillion Zubats and Bunnebys).

this is a prime example of mikey's creativity and managiing to suprise us

Funnily enough I was debating on trying to make as much of a living dex through Wonder Trade as possible. Makes sense that it would take a LONG time and a LOT of trades, especially as you complete more of it

I've been able to fill most of my Violet Pokedex by trades including the few that are Scarlet exclusives. There's still a bit more I need for completion but I'll continue to trade including a bunch of late stage pokemon to help others out.

I would love to see this as a challenge to see how many trade to actually complete it, or get down to just the version and maybe shrine legendaries left. It would probably take a ridiculous amount of time though.

This was actually really fun and fascinating as I had a similar experience. I wanted to start my playthrough with a shiny Sprigatito and bred with a Lechonk, surprise trading the breedjects. I got so many new 'mons, including a foreign Ditto, and got ~100 dex entries in 162 trades. Also, with the special raid pokemon, if you're like me and suck at doing raids, just wait a few hours after the raid starts and do some trades. I got 5 Froakie the day the Greninja raid started!

been doing a bit of surprise trading myself to help with my dex, and i do feel like people are a lot more generous with their trades than in previous gens. i know i've been trying to trade out version exclusives from my game, including paradox pokemon, the fire tauros, armarouge, and of course some starters! and i've only received one hacked shiny so far, which i promptly released lol

The melodrama on this channel is what I keep coming back for.

If Mikey got a penny for every shiny tarontulas he got... he'd only have 2 pennies but it's kind of weird that it happened twice

Congrats on the ten shinies you're so lucky.

I'm glad people are trading more diverse and dificult to get pokemon. I usually catch a bunch of area zero mons to both train my mons and surprise trade the duplicate version exclusives. Hopefully it makes someone's day

I have really been enjoy doing surprise trades and had decided to do this myself but I think that I will have to include trades in the end to get it done.
I have done round 200 trades and have completed round 160. I'm trading out doubles and will have to do evolutions.

My first somewhat full odds shiny was a Fidough. I did kinda look for it, some would say hunt, but without any shiny charm or outbreak or sandwich to raise the odds. Just... intensely checking a zone where it spawned.

I feel like only using Wonder/Surprise Trade would take an eternity in pretty much any game. I tried this in ORAS and I still haven't completed it to this day.

While I was wonder trading some leftover starters I had from breeding them all for their shinies I had come across a hacked shiny 6iv shiny ditto. That is the only hacked shiny I have gotten compared to swsh

I've been doing alot of surprise trades lately, but the pokemon I seem to get the Most are Froakie, Sprigatito & Charmander.... I received 2 paradox pokemon and 1 shiny Amoongus, but I did get alot of pokemon I already had, on the bright side I have all 3 starters on both Scarlet & Violet, plus a Graninja and 2 Haunters that evolved into Gengar... not too bad considering I traded less than you did in this video.... I wish you good luck with your future surprise trades and I hope i get some more good pokemon amongst the duplicates...lol

“Without evolving” how does that work for Gangar/regular trade evolutions (don’t need a specific item, be traded with a certain Pokémon, etc.)? From what we see in the video you got two Haunters that evolved after being traded. Would that count as two entries or one?

So I recently decided to try and beat scarlet only using surprise trade and as soon as I do, pm7 makes a video on that. Now Im half way through and Im wondering "I wonder how long it would take me to complete the pokedex this way" and then heres this video😂

I'm glad to see you get a full odds shiny, since I also got one, a Venonat that I found after getting demolished by the Grass gym leader.

If I had a nickel for every shiny tarountula mandjtv found, I'd have two nickels wich isn't alot but it's weird that it happened twice.

I tend to surprise trade away my extra shiny Pokémon that i already have so pretty cool that it seems like you got a legit one from somebody else during this process!

Dimension 20 while surprise trading has literally been my entire vibe these past few weeks

keep up the great work!

Man my first and only shiny was an Impidimp at least in this game. I didn't use it on my team since I already planned it out before then, and would've had three dark types and potentially two fairy types anyway, but since I basically never used my main team for any of the Team Star bases, I used him for the fighting base. I also got that without a shiny charm, though since I don't have NSO, or friends, getting that is never gonna happen anyway.

I might have been the lv4 Deino? I breed a lot for the hubby to be able to raid with me, and used to for competitive (for friends mostly). That deino might have been the one I brought to picnick with a while back 💕

I love how he caught a lechonk and turned that into a tinkaton

My first full-odds was a spidops in tagtree thicket. Funny because its my only shiny.

I'm going to try this in my copy of Scarlet that I haven't started yet. Will update this with the results.

I've had to ST for the last few I need to finish my Dex and I've been stuck on one away for weeks. 😅🙃
Who'd have thought getting a Slither Wing would be so impossible.

How can you tell whether or not a surprise traded Pokémon is hacked? I recently received a shiny froakie named “happynewyear” and was elated, but now I’m worried about it being hacked. Is there anything that gives it away?

Hey Mikey, older viewer here. Just wanted to say I love your content. Was doing a bit of surprise trading today and got a magikarp named Sub2MandJTV and wanted to say I was pleasantly surprised. Not sure if you will notice, I am sure you get a ton of them but I was a player named Pete and I was emptying a box of Fuecoco, wish it was a shiny but it was cool to run into one of your surprise trades

I’m actually surprised that the website trades have already been started. I didn’t think it would happen for a while. At least the Haunter/Gengar seems legit. Also congrats on the two shiny full odds tarountula.

This guy's not only a poketuber but a pokescientist, a realistic one

Wow. My first full odds shiny was at the start of the game when I just started and it was a shiny tarountula.

My first shiny in the game was a psyduck

I did a ton of surprise trades recently trying to get the starters, it was easier to get almost all the scarlet version exclusives than to use the link codes.

Ive always wondered how well doing this would work myself, getting hacked mons isnt so great but at least you only got a handfull.

The “if you think you do, you don’t” is hilarious

Mikey. I love your Team Sky videos. How would you like it if I did a Sw/Sh Team Sky Admin playthrough using only flying types as a Nuzlocke?

Wait, why do you think the shiny Charmander and Flutter Mane aren't legit? You can hatch one and catch the other using sandwiches, or just being incredibly lucky (I've got nearly all the shiny variants of the Scarlet Paradox Pokemon)

i did something similar to that in pokemon sword.... caught pokemon in game or surprised traded as much as i could and then for those that we're versions exclusive did some trade with my brother who had pokemon shield. in the end.... as i also did the whole story line of the game..... i took me 150 hours approx. to complete all of it. could have done it in much less if i would have done less raids, but i needed xp candy to evolve a lot of pokemon

Question- Should you get rid of the website shinies or is it okay to keep them??

My first EVER shiny was a Tarantula!

i love how mikey can make up something ridiculous and still succeed

My first shiny in Pokémon Scarlet was Lechonk.

My first shiny in Pokemon Scarlet was a Shiny Tropius and it was full odds

My first shiny was right before I completed the dex, and it was a tarountuala!

I tried this last night after watching this video for fun and honestly I was quite surprised on what I actually got

I traded away a shiny Toedscruel that I named Toedscruel but it was like with a bunch of accent marks and stuff cause it spawned while I was in battle with a shiny Toedscool. Wonder how it’s doin.

The fact that I was watching dimension 20 right before this video and I’m pretty sure the exact campaign to being fantasy high is hilarious

I haven't played a whole lot lot of scarlet and I've already found two full odds shinies. The first being croagunk and the second marill

Thank you for your patronage. Now I am going to go surprise trade for a bit to get some of the Scarlett Pokemon that I cannot get. Plus the starters!

Skrelp took me 4 days by surprise trade. I was going off like I found a shiny Milotic full odds.

Getting a shiny haunter that evolves into gengar is ultimate luck. I'd actually cry.

Good job Mikey, you got into watching dimension 20 and I love pretty much all there seasons. Your in for a trip with them.

Dimension 20 is incredible, glad to see more people talking about it!

my first full odds was also tarountula!

Question, if you get a hacked shiny, will is negatively affect your account? Can you get banned?

The second you mentioned Dimension 20 I got like so excited! Always have that on in the background, it's a great show.

my first shiny in pokemon violet was tarountula and it was the 3rd pokemon i caught (first was fuecoco and then the lechonk as tutorial)

Want to share that there is a setup now for trading for exclusives, using the Dex numbers for the room code.

One cannot describe the excitement I felt at learning you're getting into Dimension 20 as someone who's been watching it for years. I hope you enjoy it!

On the topic of shinies, if it helps, I've yet to find a single one in Paldea 😅

My first playthrough starting from launch day was a surprise trade nuzlocke that i further limited to just gen 9 pokemon, re-trading each catch till i got something new. By the end of the first box it took like 45 min of repeat re-trading for each catch, so lessened the limit to any non-repeat at that point. Still ended up in the repeat loop like a box and a half later, but by that point i had caught something in just about every location and about finished the story so nuzlocke was basically over anyway. Following that stricter ruleset, though factoring in the varied catches along the way for trade fodder, i also ended up with about 70-ish percent dex completion after evolution/breeding, it just took longer lol.

Depending on my mood I will either surprise trade a hoppip or an iron Valliant

Mikey saying he got into Dimension 20 made me ridiculously happy, not gonna lie 😂

i got a lot of Violet Exclusives through the surprise trades, and then Iron Hands like 20 times lmao

I feel like jack is gonna get so jealous bc you got the shiny ditto

I must be unlucky lol I have only gotten 1 happynewyear pokemon and I wondertrade a ton for my breedjects when breeding for shiny mons.

I’m curious if he got the once in a lifetime mark from all this trading

My first shiny was also a tarontula

I managed to complete a third of the Dex at the start of the game via surprise trade alone when I was trying to get a Charmander

My first shiny ever was a full odds shiny gogoat and I mediately thought of mikey’s pokemon y but everything is randomized

It's like the CandyEvie videos where she surprise trades a thousand Magnemites! Now that you've had a taste, I'd love to see you react to one of those videos of hers

Was not expecting a reference to Dimension 20 here- I’m a huge fan of it!

Wow, never expected to end up on here. Thanks for the lechonk. Sorry the scorbunny didn't help, or if you ended up with a bunch of my starters. Just trying to help people who can't get them other ways.
Great vid!

I was trading out Slakoths! I wonder if you got it from me

I’m honestly amazed this is your first full odds shiny in SV. I’ve been just drowning in them without even looking for them. Is John draining your shiny luck or something? Because his shiny luck is insane!

I've gotten 2 full odds shiny in scarlet. Lechonk and Mudsbray.

This makes me want to do a wonderlocke

I can't even get just the Scarlet exclusives from many many attempts at surprise trade but I've sent a lot of amazing stat froakies out into the world after finally getting a Greninja and breeding it like mad so that's something 🤣. I appreciate having been traded charmanders and scorbunnys though I missed those raids. Plus the other starters. My best is probably the random spiritomb I got traded. Not come across one in game and no idea where to do so, so that was lucky 🤣

I was thinking about this the other day. I might give it a go when Pokemon Home can connect to Scarlet/Violet in case I get something good

I just found and caught my first full odds shiny of gen 9, a bonsley, seconds before mikey found his, lol.

I feel really bad about an experience- I was just surprised trading a little early game, expecting nothing as the previous generations hadn't been the most diverse in pokémon.
I got iron jugulis, And it seems authentic- I don't know what to do I feel really bad hahahahaha because they received a flittle

Tbh for me, I tend to trade the raid pokemon I get from 5 and 6 star raids

My first 2 shinies were Lechonk. My third was me breeding charmanders with the Masuda method and it was like the 6th charmander I hatched and haven't had one since.

Arboliva could have also been from a Tera Raid. I got my Arboliva with a fire tera type from a tera raid haha. That was after getting both it's previous evo's from surprise trade.

Honestly, I love it when you present stats on your video. 😊

So what did you get in exchange for the Tarountulas?